XP IS GETTING a bit long in the tooth, Vista is a pig and you don't want to buy a Mac and join the Jobs Cult. So, you're thinking of having a look at Linux, but are bamboozled by the hundreds of flavours and don't want to spend a weekend discussing it with disturbingly intense bearded men in socks and sandals. So here is the Inquirer's guide to Linux: quick, clear, opinionated and unfair.

I often slam The Inq for some of the articles it sometimes publishes, but I think this guide is relatively stable enough for non-Linux users to read and get a brief glimpse into the Linux world.

I especially like the following quote from the article:

Quote:

First time around, don't use a laptop - use a desktop machine with a wired network connection. Don't dual boot it if you can avoid it - use a PC you can wipe clean. Don't try something state of the art, as there may not be free drivers yet. Most hardware vendors are too selfish to provide free documentation for open source developers, so everything must be reverse-engineered. You don't need much - just the same sort of spec as for XP. Half a gig of RAM, although more won't hurt, a 2GHz CPU and 20G of hard disk will be plenty. It's faster and easier to install than Windows, and once it's on, all your applications will be right there ready to use, and it only ever needs a single online update rather than half a dozen visits to windowsupdate.microsoft.com, rebooting each time.